Key New Hires, Programs and More Than 1,600 New Partners Help Spark Tremendous Channel Growth for Sophos


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Aug 21, 2013) - Sophos has experienced tremendous channel growth since the start of 2013, highlighted by new Americas and Australia & New Zealand channel chiefs, an industry-first MSP program and more than 1,600 new partners worldwide, bringing the total number of active partners to more than 12,000.

Bolstered Channel Team
Sophos has recently strengthened its channel team with the appointments of Kendra Krause, Americas channel chief and Karen Delaney, Australia & New Zealand channel chief.

Prior to Sophos, Krause served most recently as Fortinet's Channel Sales and Operations vice president. She previously served in channel sales and marketing roles at SonicWall, WatchGuard and CDW. Delaney spearheaded channel strategies at IBM, Acer and Dell/SonicWALL. Since joining the company, she has played an integral part in bringing Distribution Central and Connector Systems onboard as Sophos' first distribution partners in Australia and New Zealand.

Channel Honors
Sophos has received considerable recognition for both its channel team and channel program. Included among this year's honors:

  • CRN UK's Channel Sales & Marketing Award -- The Sophos Partner Program was declared "best in the UK." This award recognizes and rewards the achievements of those individuals and teams responsible for making the UK IT channel so successful.

  • CRN's 2013 Top Women of the Channel -- Several Sophos' channel leaders were among the honorees: Kendra Krause, vice president of Americas channel sales, Amy Gelpey, senior channel marketing manager, and Regina Vignone, director of sales.

  • CRN's Power 100 Most Powerful Women of the Channel -- Kendra Krause was among the elite list of executives recognized for their channel achievements.

  • CRN's 2013 5-Star Partner Rating -- The 5-Star Partner Program rating recognizes an elite subset of Partner Program Guide vendors that give solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs.

  • CDW -- Sophos was named Sapphire Partner of the Year for 2012; Sophos was one of CDW's fastest-growing partners of the year.

Key Channel Recognition for Sophos UTM
The company was also highlighted in the 2013 CRN Annual Report Card (ARC). This prestigious study is considered the definitive benchmark for measuring excellence in the IT Channel community and recognizes the top-rated vendor partners in the industry. Sophos was given the highest honors for product innovation in the Network Security Appliances category for its unified threat management (UTM) solution, Sophos UTM. Winners were announced live at an awards reception on Tuesday, August 20, 2013, at the XChange 2013 event in Washington, D.C.

"At Sophos, every year is the year of the partner, but this year in particular has truly demonstrated our 'channel-first' commitment -- from hosting the largest partner conferences in our history to a game-changing new MSP program, our focus is our channel," said Mike Valentine, senior vice president, worldwide sales, Sophos. "We offer partners the most complete IT security value proposition -- proven and award-winning security solutions that are simple to use, combined with the industry's most powerful channel program. And with an aggressive roadmap that features an impressive array of offerings, we're very excited about delivering partners even more value in the coming months to help them grow."

To learn more about the Sophos Partner Program, please click here or visit http://www.sophos.com/en-us/partners.aspx.

About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos' complete security solutions as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Simple to deploy, manage, and use, Sophos' award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, mobile and network security solutions are backed by SophosLabs -- a global network of threat intelligence centers.

Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.

Contact Information:

Media Contact:
Dave De Jear
Sophos